


I'm a Believer

by here4thereylo



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Smut, BB-8 is Donkey, Canon Divergent, Canonverse Shrek AU, Crack, Eventual Smut, F/M, Kylo is Princess Fiona, Light Name-calling, Rey is Shrek, Shrek AU, Smut, Soulmates, somehow it is both Angst and Crack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:27:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22306426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/here4thereylo/pseuds/here4thereylo
Summary: Once upon a time, there lived a prince, sequestered in a tall tower on a fiery planet, lost to the dark. It's up to the fiercest knight from the Resistance to stage a rescue.Or: The Shrek AU you didn't know you needed.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 41
Kudos: 65
Collections: Solo Love Letters





	1. Disappointment Haunted All of My Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Azuwrite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azuwrite/gifts).



> Of all your wonderful prompts, Ash, I couldn't help myself from picking this one...and then it turned into Canonverse. I'm not really sure how that happened! I hope you enjoy it, you are a wonderful person and I'm so excited to get an opportunity to write for you!!

Once upon a time, in a faraway land called Mustafar, lived a prince. He was tucked away in the highest tower of the castle, isolated and for who knows how long. He’d lost track of time months ago. The castle was scorched and black, surrounded by moats filled with fiery lava.

He had followed Snoke’s tutelage, away from his family and directly into the open, waiting arms of the dark side.

Except, the dark side was nothing like he had anticipated.

He had expected power and glory, when in reality he had gotten only abuse and never ending scrutiny from his mentor, his master.

He craved knowledge and mastery of the Force, but after constantly failing to meet Snoke’s unreasonably high expectations, he was relegated to a lonely existence on Mustafar.

When he was first banished to the barren castle, he thought it had been a reward. Finally, he had impressed his master. He would get to rule one of the planets under First Order domain and prove he was worthy of being Snoke’s right hand.

The realization of his true situation was slow to dawn on him, living in denial that the Supreme Leader would do anything not in the mighty Kylo Ren’s favor. After a year of isolation in his tower, essentially abandoned by his master, he was falling apart, left alone with his thoughts for far too long.

He had found ways to pass the days. There was a small staff of droids to keep him company, that made sure there was food for Kylo to eat and other domestic supplies he needed. He had chosen one room for the sole purpose of attacking with his saber, lashing out whenever he was upset at his situation, or bored.

He was bored a lot.

Like a diligent student to the dark, he meditated often, practiced combat forms, and spent time trying to communicate with this grandfather through the Force. Here, in the same castle his grandfather made his home, he had never been so close physically, and yet so far away from being able to commune with the great Darth Vader.

After a year of solitude, he had given up hope his situation would change at all. He began moping, a depression taking over him. Some days he wouldn’t leave the tallest tower, where his quarters were, refusing to get out of bed. 

He’d started to etch marks on the wall. One for each day he hadn’t had a conversation with another human being. He stopped wearing his helmet after three or four months, realizing no one would be there he needed to intimidate. 

On his four hundredth day on Mustafar, he felt a presence.

At first, he thought he might finally be able to have an audience with his grandfather, but quickly realized the presence was...different.

Light.

He had forgotten what that felt like.

He trudged himself to the window near his bed, peering out to see if he could see anything. His usual view greeted him, angry red and black everywhere, the lava flowing as if it were a lazy river.

Then something caught his eye, off in the distance.

A ship.

_Master?_ He asked internally. He would kill to hear Snoke’s voice, to see his mentor after all this time. If this was a test, and he passed, he would please the Supreme Leader.

_Fuck the Supreme Leader_ , the other side of his brain yelled. _He left you here for over a year!_

_*_ His question was left unanswered, but whatever presence he felt was creeping closer and closer. He started pacing, frustrated over the lack of control. He could feel...something, someone, but he couldn’t locate them. Couldn’t figure out where they were or where they were going. 

His anxiety spiked with the feeling in his head; he could tell whoever was out there was encountering resistance. He was alone here, what kind of resistance is this unknown being running into? Tripping over tree roots?

His pacing continued, unable to calm himself down as he waited for his fate. He pulled his lightsaber to his hand from across the room with the Force, ready at a moment’s notice to fight if he needed to. He looked to the alcove on the other end of the room, at his helmet. Should he put it on?

He opted to don the helmet, ready to be the most intimidating version of himself. Not to mention, it would hide the greasy hair that he hadn’t bothered to wash in the fresher the last several days.

He stood, at the ready, for several minutes. Nothing happened. No one came.

Maybe this was a mind trick of the Supreme Leader. He could not mistake the ship, that was curious, but maybe Snoke was manipulating his mind, tricking him into thinking he was being provided with company. With a respite for the loneliness.

He flopped onto the bed, somehow even lower than before, regretting getting his hopes up. He never bothered to take his helmet off or discard his lightsaber, so he was holed up on his mattress, full uniform and all, staring at the ceiling through his mask.

He had fallen into a stupor, and had not noticed that there were increasingly louder crashing sounds echoing through the castle. Hadn’t heard the footsteps bounding up the tower steps. He had tuned everything out, he hadn’t even noticed the triumphant feeling inside of his head from the presence there.

Suddenly, the door busted in with such force that it startled Kylo off the bed and into a defensive stance within milliseconds. The humanoid on the other side of the threshold had kicked down the door, but they had to have used the Force, as they were too small to have inflicted so much damage.

The petite...man, from what it looked like to Kylo, stood in the entrance to the room, head to toe in armor. Their face was covered, not allowing Kylo to get a good look at who this intruder, this visitor was. He had spent so long in this solitary confinement, he didn’t know what to do first...attack the knight or hug them.

The two stood at an impasse, both appraising the other. Seeing who would make the first move. Finally, the intruder held out their gloved hand to Kylo, and he stared at it, eyes transfixed on the small hand.

“Join me,” the voice said, a slight tinny echo to the sound. Whether it was a voice modulator like his or just the nature of the helmet, Kylo couldn’t be sure. “I’ll get you out of here.”

“But my master…” Kylo looked around the room, torn between freedom and his devotion to Snoke. He looked back at his rescuer, who was radiating impatience through their body language.

“Come on, we don’t have a lot of time. I held off the stormtroopers but more will be on our tail any minute. It’s now or never.” 

_Stormtroopers?_ Kylo thought to himself. He was supposed to be all alone on this godforsaken planet. Since when were there guards? He instantly made up his mind.

He was done with the lies. He was done with the misdirection and with the waiting in the dark. He was done with the isolation.

He was going to take the sliver of freedom extended to him.

He grasped his rescuer’s hand, and they turned around and ran out of the room, faster than Kylo anticipated with their size.

They ran down the tower, in tandem, expecting to encounter resistance but meeting none.

They burst out of the castle, Kylo seeing the pinky red sky with his own eyes, not through a window, for the first time in over a year. He gulped in the fresh, acrid air of the volcanic planet as he followed his mystery hero over the bridge covering the moat of lava, through the forest, and to the Millenium Falcon hidden well among the trees.

_The Millenium Falcon? Who was this guy?_ Kylo thought to himself, almost coming to an abrupt stop as he saw his father’s ship. He hadn’t set eyes upon the freighter in years, and it was a rude awakening of what he was getting himself into. He was out of the pan and into the fire, so to speak.

Just before the reached the landing where the Falcon was parked, blaster fire began to rain down upon them. The mysterious knight raised a hand, freezing the blaster bolts midair and igniting a blue lightsaber, ready to attack any trooper who dared approach.

_What the heck,_ Kylo thought to himself again as he blindly followed the knight, now aware they were an extremely powerful force user. He ignited his own blade, ready to help defend their path as long as it meant freedom for him. In the moment, he didn’t care about his fate if he boarded his father’s ship. He hadn’t spoken to his parents in over a decade, but he couldn’t think about that at this moment; surely if he was caught by the stormtroopers, he would incur the wrath of Snoke for trying to leave his tall tower and he would rather risk just about anything else than confront Snoke again.

The unlikely pair fought their way through a skeleton crew of stormtroopers with ease. The knight was so skilled, Kylo barely had to do anything except keep up with them. His skills were rusty; all that training against droids and castle walls couldn’t replace actual combat. They pushed through the last of the stormtroopers, and made a break for the ramp of the Falcon, boarding without further interruption.

Kylo stopped in his tracks, memories flooding back to him at once. Instantly, his mind transported back to him as a kid, hiding in the cargo hold when his dad would get ready for adventures, always being found and taken back to his mom. “Not this time, kid,” his dad would always say, and Kylo would have to watch his dad take off. At the same time, happy thoughts of the few times Han Solo took his son on those adventures. Kylo wondered if where he scratched _B.S._ into a corner of one of the walls was still there. He expected it was. The ship looked the same as the last time he stepped foot in it, if a little worse for wear.

The knight bustled around him, oblivious to the internal crisis the mighty Kylo Ren was experiencing. They flipped the switches, gearing up the ship to take off, and turned back to Kylo where he was standing, his hulking body barely inside the ship and one foot still on the ramp.

“You just going to stand there or are you going to help me get off this kriffing planet?” The voice sounded, shaking Kylo from his flashbacks. He took two steps further into the ship, and his rescuer closed the ramp.

“Who are you?” Kylo asked, his voice lowered by the modulator in his mask, still raspy from disuse.

“I’m no one,” the stranger sounded.

“I don’t believe that,” Kylo argued. “You froze all those blaster bolts out there. You have my--you have this ship. At least tell me the name of the man that helped me get out of that hellhole.”

The masked stranger, head to toe in their sandy brown armor, froze and cocked their head at him.

“Man?” 

The knight didn’t wait for a response. Instead, they lifted their hands to the helmet that had been obstructing their face. They pulled the helmet swiftly from their head, and what Kylo saw arrested him, his heart stuttering to a stop.

A beautiful woman emerged from underneath the disguise. She swung her hair back and forth, the strands flying in the wind and catching on her sweaty forehead, sticking to her face. She inelegantly tried to blow the hair off her face, to no avail, and ran the back of her hand across her forehead, wiping the sweat on her leg.

_Oh_ , Kylo thought to himself. He stood, transfixed, watching this creature in front of him, so unlike any proper woman he’d met in his childhood or at Luke’s academy, and yet. His eyes couldn’t leave her face, immediately affected by her. His cock twitched, and he didn’t understand his body’s reaction.

The girl dropped the helmet to the floor with a _thud_ , and placed her hands on her hips. She stared at him, exasperated, while he tried to catch his brain up to his body.

When it was clear he wasn’t capable of speaking, the girl rolled her eyes. “I’m Rey. Let’s get out of here.” She turned around, effectively ignoring him and heading to the cockpit.

He shook his head, suddenly irritated that this...whoever she was, would act that way around him. He may have been the rescued party here, but he was a force to be reckoned with. He was the mighty Kylo Ren! Nobody rolled their eyes at him without feeling his wrath.

He stormed into the cockpit, taking a seat in the co-pilot chair and stared at her, silently fuming at her blatant disrespect and dismissal of him.

She huffed and turned to face him. “Stop breathing so loud at me, helmet head,” she bit out. “Why are you still wearing that thing anyway?” She lifted them off the ground, effortlessly soaring into the air and jumping to lightspeed. She set the autopilot on, and got out of the chair, leaving Kylo behind.

He heard a giant crash of metal, and got up to follow her.

“What the kriff was that?!” He asked, charging after her.

“Relax, nerfherder, it’s just BB-8.”

“Don’t call me a nerfherder, you moofmilker.”

“My name’s Rey, not moofmilker, thank you very much.” 

Rey. It suited her, somehow. He liked it, running the name over and over in his head, and then remembered he was supposed to be mad at this woman. The woman who has shown him no deference, no respect so far.

She smirked at his lack of verbal response, pleased she’d won the name calling match, and went back to the little tasks she was doing around the ship, checking valves and seeing if anything needed maintenance. He watched with a mixture of irritation and awe, happy to see someone else caring for this ship as much as he used to, but mad that it would be entrusted to anyone other than himself.

It was going to be a long ride to wherever they were going.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wave of nostalgia washed over him as he buckled into the gunner’s chair, adjusting the various knobs and levers to accommodate his large size. It had been years since he’d been in this seat. The entire ship shuddered, and he realized now was not the time for a morose trip down memory lane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are finally back with an update! This is my first attempt at canon so I am honestly very intimidated by it! Add in a crazy work schedule, multiple WIPs and participating in another exchange...needless to say I'm sorry it's been awhile! Hopefully you find some fun in this :) 
> 
> Also this is totally un-beta'd and barely edited so all typos/grammar mistakes etc are my own!
> 
> Also I upped the chapter count because chapters are running a little bit more bite-sized than I thought!

They exited lightspeed much the same as they entered it; bickering.

“Where are we?” Kylo asked, frustrated that he hadn’t been able to get a straight answer out of Rey the entire time they’ve spent together. He hadn’t answered any of her questions so far; who she was, where she came from, why she had his father’s ship. Where was his father? 

She didn’t answer this question either, and he groaned in frustration. 

“Maybe I would talk to you if you deigned to take off that stupid mask you’re wearing. I can barely understand you anyhow.”

The mask. Of course. He hadn’t wanted to take it off, embarrassed about his looks, especially in light of seeing her without hers. He’d spent his whole life self-conscious about his ears, growing his hair long to cover them up. Then, in his depression, his lack of personal hygiene, he didn’t want her to see how much he’d let himself go.

Not that she had anything to compare it to. No one had ever seen Kylo Ren without his mask at the height of his influence.

Before he’d disappointed his master and ended up in exile.

Suddenly, alarms started blasting throughout the cockpit. Rey flipped a variety of switches, looking at gauges and radars and noticing two TIE fighters coming up on their rear.

“Kriff! Do you know how to fire a laser cannon?” She asked, not casting a look in Kylo’s direction. He soundlessly nodded, and, belatedly realizing she couldn’t see him, grunted in affirmation and stood up, running out of the cockpit. He knew the route to the gunner position like the back of his hand, sitting down there as a kid when he needed to hide away.

A wave of nostalgia washed over him as he buckled into the gunner’s chair, adjusting the various knobs and levers to accommodate his large size. It had been years since he’d been in this seat. The entire ship shuddered, and he realized now was not the time for a morose trip down memory lane. He tried to put the headset on over his mask, and realizing quickly the effort was fruitless, tossed it down on the ground. He figured Rey wouldn’t be any help to him anyway; he was an expert marksman, unmatched in combat.

He pivoted the massive gun around, trying to get a lock on one of the TIE fighters and throwing a prayer to the Maker or the Force or whoever was listening Rey would be able to avoid the barrage of blaster fire coming their way. He had to take both of these guys out.

She was zigzagging through space, evading every enemy attack but preventing him from being able to focus the gun on either of the fighter craft. He was essentially ineffective. He’d fired some defensive shots, none of them hitting their mark as she barrel rolled, dove and swerved, faking the TIE fighters out at every turn. He begrudgingly admitted to himself that she was an expert flier, nearly as good as himself. No one was as good at flying except him. Well, he supposed his father was, but he wasn’t ready to dive down that hole of depression and sadness while sitting in his father’s ship, having long ago abandoned his family name.

“Keep it steady up there I can’t get a lock on them!” He bellowed up to the cockpit. Which was useless, considering he wasn’t wearing the headset and Rey constantly complained she couldn’t understand him anyway with the voice modulator in his mask. He looked up at the ceiling briefly, willing her to hear him somehow.

Almost as if she somehow heard his thoughts, the Falcon leveled out, and he capitalized on the reprieve in constant maneuvering to take out both TIEs with two precise shots. He whooped, pumping his fist in the air. The rush of adrenaline overtook him, pride and excitement that didn’t feel entirely his own coursing through his veins. The feelings felt foreign to him. Had he not experienced joy in so long he didn’t understand the feeling any longer?

The danger having passed, Kylo ascended back up to the cockpit. Rey stood up, smiling widely and squealing with glee. 

“That was incredible! Excellent shot! Did you see that??” She prattled on, excited about their escapades. Kylo understood instantly that somehow, her excitement was what he was feeling down in the gunner position. Somehow, he felt the same emotions she did after their domination over the TIEs. He decided he would study that later. He caught himself smiling, her enthusiasm was that infectious. He was thankful again for the helmet; no one ever saw Kylo Ren smile. That was inconceivable. 

“Why did you rescue me?” He asked, the high from their small victory bolstering his courage and feeding his curiosity. It seemed as good a time as any; she was in a good mood and might actually give him an answer. 

He was left without a response again, as more alarms blared out from the cockpit. This time, they were not from an enemy, but from ship failure.

“Damn it, the compressor. I told Poe the Falcon wasn’t ready.” She mumbled to herself, sashaying back to the cockpit to address the alarms. He followed her into the cramped space, watching her mess with some wires and he rushed to shoo her hand away. She looked at him, scandalized that he would interrupt her.

“Do you want us to crash? Don’t mess with those, it’ll detach L3 from the system!” He yelled, pushing her aside and examining the mess behind the panel. She eyed him warily, no doubt curious as to how he knew intimate details about the ship they were on.

The ship lurched again and Rey took to the pilot’s chair as Kylo frantically tried to diagnose the problem behind the malfunction. He swore to himself when he recognized that Rey was right, something was wrong with the compressor...and a litany of other things. His dad never took care of this ship the way he should have, and he was surprised the hunk of junk was still flying.

Well, barely.

Rey scanned the navigational charts, clearly looking for a viable planet to land. She seemed to find a place, and keyed it in and steered the ship out of the hyperspace lane.

“Where are you taking us?” Kylo asked, voice garbled through the mask.

“Naboo,” she responded in a clipped tone, too focused on minimizing the lurching of the ship as they careened into the atmosphere of the planet, much too fast to make a safe landing.

“Kriffing hell, Rey, slow us down!” 

“I’m trying! Not so easy without a co-pilot.” 

Kylo launched himself into the co-pilot’s chair next to her, grabbing onto the joystick of the secondary break and pressing a few more side switches. 

The Falcon slowed, just barely enough to not crash but not slow enough to remain unscathed. They skidded to a half in the middle of a grassy field, and Rey sent a silent thank you up to the Maker that they hadn’t landed among a mountain range.

They descended down the boarding ramp to the Falcon, emerging onto the plain. Kylo immediately went towards the hull of the ship, checking the extent of the damage while Rey stood in awe, taking in the sights.

“You going to keep ogling the countryside or are you gonna help me over here?” Kylo called out to her, and she begrudgingly turned and headed towards him.

The damage was manageable. They would need a handful of parts if they ever hoped to leave the planet again, but it wasn’t unsalvageable.

“There’s a town not too far that way, we should be able to make it there by early afternoon,” Kylo mumbled, setting off at a brisk pace, not looking back to see if she was following him.

“Hold on just a second,” she panted, jogging to catch up to him. “How do you know where town is?”

“I’ve been here before,” he said, not elaborating.

“What? Hey--” she caught up with him again, his long legs and unforgiving pace causing her to quickly fall behind again. “Who do you think you are?”

He stopped dead in his tracks, swiveling his head to look at her. How did this woman not know who Kylo Ren was, the most powerful force user in the galaxy? HIs name was meant to be the most feared name of anyone, except for maybe Supreme Leader Snoke.

“Who do I think I am? Did you really just ask me that?” She crossed her arms, looking at him defiantly. “Who do  _ you _ think  _ you _ are?”

“Why won’t you take your helmet off?”

“Why did you rescue me?”

“I’ll tell you if you take that blasted thing off.”

Kylo stared at her for a beat, contemplating. 

And then stalked off in the direction of the town.

She groaned audibly in frustration, and they trudged for a while in silence. She had a small pack with her, and her quarterstaff, but she regretted the fact that she hadn’t packed for such a trek. She had a modest amount of credits, her water pack, and some rations, but if they were going to be away from the Falcon more than a day or two they were going to run into bigger problems.

After about an hour of walking, Rey tried again.

“Who are you, really?” She asked, as the fields in front of them seemed to stretch on for miles with no end in sight.

“I should be asking you the same question. You show up on Mustafar, with the Millenium Falcon. You handle a swath of stormtroopers with ease. An expert pilot. But you look like a common scavenger.”

She huffed at the statement, somehow both a compliment and a dig. Their pace had evened out, and she took a deep breath before responding, hoping to bite back some of the spite she wanted to fling at him.

”Well maybe I’m like an onion.”

Kylo snorted into his helmet. “An onion? You mean like you smell like one? You do kinda reek.”

“Oh you’re one to talk, I can smell you from here.” She made a scene of sniffing him and crinkling her nose in distaste. 

“So you make people cry, then,” he deadpanned.

“Oh sod off, Kylo.  _ No _ . I mean layers. I have layers, I’m not some one-trick fathier who is only good for scavenging parts.”

He didn’t immediately respond. He certainly thought there were better analogies to make, but he understood her point well enough.

“That still doesn’t explain why you showed up to take me away from that place.”

“Kylo, I said already, I’m not saying a word unless you take off that kriffing helmet.”

He contemplated for a moment, and then moved his hands to the buttons on each side of his head, depressing them. The helmet hissed, and Rey’s head snapped at the sound.

He lifted the metal cage off his head, tossing it on the ground next to him dismissively with a loud  _ thunk _ . He wouldn’t be needing it anymore. He gulped in a deep breath of fresh air, not filtered through the mask, and turned to see an incredulous look on Rey’s face. She had been shocked into silence.

“What? It was getting hot in there anyway.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie. His greasy, unwashed hair was laden with sweat, plastered across his forehead and sticking to his face. 

“You’re...not what I expected,” she admitted. “Though I don’t know what I was expecting when I accepted the job.”

“Accepted the--you were hired? By who?” His mind raced. He had been out of the public eye for so long, locked in that tower for punishment, that he didn’t think anyone was looking for him. He suddenly panicked, wondering if this was a test from Snoke. Should he have fought her? Would he be in trouble if he left his tower, did Snoke already know he had escaped? Was she taking him to the decrepit old man right now, and the crash on Naboo was just a ruse?

His mind ran away with itself, spiraling into other scenarios. What if it was the Resistance, his mother? He didn’t know if he could handle that. Which would he rather deal with? He hoped not--

“I was hired by Leia Organa.”

  
Well,  _ kriff _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me twitter @here4thereylo
> 
> Also a couple other things I've written:
> 
> [The Choice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20169280/chapters/47785570) \- The Selection AU or The Bachelor meets Royalty meets Hunger Games vibes. WIP.
> 
> [867-5309](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21264731/chapters/50630144) \- A short, smutty love letter to the 80's where Rey gets a new phone number that coincides with the number in an old song. Complete


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